


Rule 62

by mercymain (antivanarmada), ohsocyanide



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, References to Addiction, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:02:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivanarmada/pseuds/mercymain, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohsocyanide/pseuds/ohsocyanide
Summary: When Graham Landry moves to Pelican Town to kickstart the supposedly haunted Hayes Farm, he isn't surprised to find that the farm is, in fact, definitely not haunted (at least according to him). What he finds instead is Shane Carver, four hundred days and counting into his longest-running bout of sobriety. Shane has a white-knuckled grip on the bandwagon that is sober living and is doing everything he can to follow the Twelve Steps. That doesn't leave room for any distractions, much less a relationship with the new farmer in town who Shane finds a bit more charming than he'd like to admit. Yet as his friendship with Graham deepens, Shane learns to live by the one and only rule of Alcoholics Anonymous: Don't take yourself so damn seriously.





	1. Chapter 1

 

Harold Hayes spent his entire life on his family’s farm, building it up and preparing it for the next generation. His ancestors had worked the land for over a hundred years, and he was proud to be the newest link in the chain. He knew the land intimately in a way that only a Hayes could. He knew which windows in the barn were liable to blow open during a storm, and he knew exactly how to shore them up so it wouldn’t happen. He knew which floorboards in the farmhouse would creak when you stepped on them and which sections of the roof needed to be patched before winter came. He knew what time of day it was by where the sun was in the sky, and he knew how an early frost or a heavy rain would affect the grain yield of his crop.

 

There wasn’t a single corner of his land that he hadn’t walked, and after eighty-four years of never leaving the valley, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had left something his offspring could be proud of. Something that could give them a future.

 

Except, as it turned out, they didn’t want it.

 

Harold Hayes died on a hot summer day with only the town doctor in attendance, and his farm stood unattended for years. He had left the land to his eldest granddaughter, but she was working her way up the corporate ladder in the city and never seriously considered throwing her career away to chase a pipe dream. His grandson would have moved in if he could, but he was five years into a thirty year mortgage and couldn’t afford the early leave penalty. Harold’s son certainly couldn’t tend to the land on his own, given that he was sixty and a widower with arthritis that got worse every day. And so, after a series of awkward conversations and confusing legal deliberations, Hayes Farm went up for sale.

 

There were a few prospective buyers, but their offers left much to be desired. The land was sprawling and lush with potential to be sure, but there was one part of the package that made everyone a tad uncomfortable: the farm was haunted. Indisputably so, if you asked the locals. Apparently the spirit of old Harold Hayes was unhappy with how his final will and testament had been ignored and decided to walk the fields at night until a Hayes returned to the valley to make their peace. No one had any _proof_ of a ghost, of course, but out in the north country people took superstition very seriously. No one wanted to move into a haunted farmhouse, and no amount of quaint country charm and fertile soil could tempt anyone to take that leap. Until the day that a Zuzu City local with easy charm and an open checkbook called up the Hayes family lawyer with an offer - full asking price and a move-in deadline of the following month.

 

And that’s how Graham Landry came to be sitting on the living room floor of a family farm for a family that wasn’t his, cross-legged and humming while a blue-haired woman blew sage in his face.

 

“Air, fire, water, earth,” she intoned. “Cleanse, dismiss, dispel.”

 

Graham opened his eyes for a second only to clamp them shut again, the smoke burning and causing him to tear up. “This is a really shitty way to get high,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve.

 

Emily giggled and wafted more smoke over him for good measure. “But it’s an excellent way to ward off negative energy.”

 

“I know I told you this at the bar,” Graham said as he tried his best to not breathe in any of the smoke, “but I don’t really buy into this whole crystal witchy stuff.”

 

“That’s fine. But I do,” she said brightly. “And I’d be a pretty bad neighbor if I let you get run out of town by a ghost.”

 

Graham sat back and rested his weight on his hands as Emily stood up and started to walk the sage around the room. He opened his eyes again after a few moments and saw her kneel by his front door, whispering her ritual words as she did so.

 

“Well, I don’t really believe in ghosts either, so I wouldn’t hold it against you. I appreciate the company, though.”

 

“I bet! This is a lot of property for just one person. I think I’d get lonely out here.”

 

“The five dogs help fill it out,” he shrugged. “And the cat.”

 

“I didn’t see the cat!” Emily chirped, peering over her shoulder in case it had just appeared behind her.

 

“Yeah, he’s probably on the roof or floating on top of the lake right now. Huey doesn’t really give a shit about the laws of nature, but he’s around.”

 

Emily laughed again despite being halfway through another chant. She stood on her tiptoes so that she could run the sage trail along the top of the doorway.

 

Graham lapsed into silence as he watched Emily stroll around his house like a smokey tourist. When she had her back turned he whipped his phone out of his pocket and took a short video of her wafting the smoke over his bed, muttering her invocation. He saved it and held his thumb over the screen as he tried to figure out who exactly he could even send it to. Not any of his friends back home. Only a few of them knew that he had moved at all, and those that did were pissed about it. Definitely not Hannah - that would lead to a whole round of questions about why he was sending her videos of another woman in his bedroom.

 

So just Doll, then. He pocketed his phone and decided to send it to her later once he’d thought of a funny enough caption.

 

After circling Graham’s bedroom twice, Emily emerged again with the same megawatt smile she’d been sporting since she introduced herself to him at the bar.  Graham liked to style himself as a fairly affable guy, but he was nothing compared to people like Emily. _Relentlessly cheerful,_ Hannah would have said.

 

“Can’t you just feel the energy in here balancing out already?” she asked. “The whole atmosphere has totally lifted.”

 

Graham felt that everything about his farmhouse was exactly the same as before, except now there was a distinct cannabis-esque scent in the air that would probably linger around for a few days. He smiled back at her all the same.

 

“Glad to hear it,” he said. “So that’s all you needed to do?”

 

“Hm, really I should do the upstairs too. And it’s always nice to sage any animals living in the home as well.”

 

“Sorry, upstairs is off limits. Too many boxes. And Huey might be into it, but please don’t sage my dogs. They’re sleeping, and I know for a fact that Grunt would try to eat it.”

 

“Then in that case I’m all done!” Emily answered, seeming to take no offense to Graham’s pushback. “Almost. Do you have a shovel? Or a trowel?”

 

“Uh, probably? I mean, _I_ don’t, but I’m sure there’s one in the shed. Why?”

 

“For a really thorough cleansing, we should bury the smudge outside.”

 

“The smudge?”

 

“The sage,” she said with a grin. “It’ll make sure that the outside of your house is just as protected as the inside.”

 

“Weird. But okay.”

 

Graham followed Emily outside as she wandered over to the shed in search of a shovel. Graham hadn’t even been inside of it yet - as soon as he’d gotten to the valley he had gone straight to the house to meet up with his movers, and had been so preoccupied with unloading boxes and getting his pets situated that he hadn’t taken the time to properly walk his property yet. He could have done it after his movers left, but by then hours had passed and he had decided instead to make the short hike into town in search of food.

 

On the way back he made a quick pit stop into the saloon looking for something stronger than the water he’d been guzzling all day. Which is where he’d met Emily. As soon as she heard that he had just moved into Hayes Farm she had whipped off her apron and practically dragged him back to his home so that she could “properly cleanse the space.” Graham didn’t put any stock in new age crap like that - and if Emily started talking about horoscopes he was going to lose all ability to hold back his snark - but he hadn’t resisted it at all. Like he had told her in the house, he appreciated the company.

 

The shed was crammed with junk; building materials and farm equipment that Graham didn’t know the name or function of were piled all the way to the ceiling, and everything had a considerable layer of dust. Emily wasn’t perturbed by it, and slipped her small frame in between slats of spare lumber before emerging a minute later holding a shovel triumphantly. She was greeted by Graham doing a respectful slow clap in her honor.

 

“Looks like you’ve got some spring cleaning ahead of you,” she said as she closed the shed doors and locked them behind her. “Some of the stuff in there is as old as Mr. Hayes.”

 

“Yeah, except I don’t even really know what’s trash and what’s worth keeping,” Graham admitted. He took the shovel and walked a few paces away before beginning to dig a shallow hole for the sage. “Do you?”

 

“No way,” Emily laughed. “I’m happy to help however you need it, but I don’t know the first thing about running a farm. You should ask Marnie, though!”

 

“Does she live around here?”

 

“She’s your closest neighbor actually.” Emily pointed south to the point where Graham’s farmland met an imposing treeline. “Just cut through the trail into the Cindersap Forest and she’s on your left. She’s a rancher and she used to work as a farmhand for the Hayes family when she was a girl, so she can talk your ear off about how to get this place up and running again.”

 

Graham finished digging and stepped aside. “I guess I’ll drop by tomorrow, then,” he said. “Do you think she’ll be around in the early afternoon?”

 

Emily dropped down onto her knees by the hole and placed the sage in. “She should be. But if not you’ll probably catch her nephew Shane. He tends the shop when she’s not around.”

 

“Sounds like a plan then. Thanks, Emily.”

 

She smiled up at him and patted the loose dirt over the burnt and still slightly smoking sage.

 

Graham turned to prop the shovel against the shed door. “Did you want to stay for dinner?” he asked. “I haven’t really unpacked any of my dishes yet, but I have a bunch of junk food that I grabbed from the Joja on the other side of town.”

 

“That’s sweet,” she said happily, “But my break’s only an hour and I should get back before the sun goes down.”

 

“Oh, sure.” Graham stood there and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was filled with an anxious energy at the prospect of being on the farm by himself. For all her odd mannerisms, Emily asking to come back to his place had been a blessing, in that it had given him something to focus on. “I can walk you back if you want.”

 

Emily smiled and stood up, rubbing the dirt from her hands and knees onto her dress. “That would be great!”

 

And so the two set off from there. It was a straight shot into town, but Graham still let Emily take the lead. She walked a few paces ahead of him while he scrolled aimlessly at his phone, trying to figure out if his reception got better or worse the further he got from the farm.

 

As they passed the bus stop, Emily turned around to look at him and walked backwards, seemingly confident that she wouldn’t trip on anything. “You really shouldn’t shop at that Joja, you know.”

 

“How come?”

 

“Businesses like those are the worst thing for little towns like ours. Poor Pierre has been pulling his hair out for years now about it all. They steal local business and they wreck the environment while they’re doing it.”

 

“I’m assuming Pierre is the one with the general store next to the doctor’s office?” Graham asked, and got a nod in response. “I tried to go there first, but the door was locked. Joja was the only thing open.”

 

“Oh, Pierre’s is always closed on Wednesdays. That’s just bad luck.”

 

“No, that’s a really bad business model. Who the hell closes on a Wednesday?”

 

Emily rolled her eyes goodnaturedly at that and turned around again, her arms swinging at her sides.

 

“Well anyway,” Graham continued, “I know all about Joja’s general shittiness, trust me. But there’s only so many places around here where I can buy a pair of slippers that also function as a floor duster.”

 

“...Did you buy that too?”

 

“I mean, they were $10. It would be insane _not_ to.”

 

Emily laughed and looked back over her shoulder. “You’re a funny guy, Graham. You’re going to like it here.”

 

Graham had moved to the valley with the expectation that he would like it, of course. He had dreamed about relocating into the country for years, which was a pretty natural thing for an environmental researcher to do. He loved nature, he hated crowds, and he had written enough academic analyses about agricultural sustainability to last a lifetime. Moving onto a farm and thereby putting his money where his mouth was seemed to fit, looking at it objectively. Still, there was a terrifying chasm of difference between wanting to do something and then actually doing it. It was too early to know if he’d made the right decision by moving out here - Hannah and his parents had made their thoughts on the whole issue abundantly clear - but he was fighting his hardest to stay positive about it.

 

“Thanks,” he said. “I hope so. It’ll be pretty awkward otherwise.”

 

*

 

Graham had been serious when he told Emily that he didn’t believe in ghosts. He could tell already that this wasn’t a popular opinion up in the country, but he stood by it. Ghosts weren’t real, and being scared of them meant you were trying too hard to find something where there was nothing. When the Hayes family lawyer had warned him about the rumors of the farm being haunted, he had burst into laughter over the phone. Simply put, it wasn’t something he was concerned about.

 

Still, once two in the morning rolled around and he was pulled away from his laptop screen by the sound of his German Shepherd whimpering, he took notice. Sitting up in bed and looking towards the front entrance, he could see Kenda scratching at the door, body tense and ears pricked up. Not normal.

 

“What’s going on, bud?” he called out, hoping that his voice would pull the dog’s attention away from the door. When it didn’t, Graham couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Kenda was an absolute fiend for getting cuddles, so whatever was bothering him was a big deal - to him, at least.

 

Almost against his better judgment, Graham crawled out of bed and padded towards the door. He reached down to scratch Kenda between the ears while peering through the peephole to see if there was anything outside. It was pitch black, obviously, but he could just make out what seemed to be lights flickering out in the field in front of his house. The hair on his arms stood up and he instinctively went for his back pocket to get his phone. Only he wasn’t wearing anything with pockets - just a dumb pair of pajama pants covered with tiny bears - and even if he _had_ his phone, who would he call? 911? He was pretty sure the closest police station was at least a couple towns away.

 

 _So just me then,_ he thought wryly.

 

Summoning up all the nerve he could muster, Graham brought his hand to the doorknob and cast a glance back to see how much back-up he was liable to get. Kenda seemed to be the only dog that was both around and awake. Steve was still wrapped up in the blankets audibly snoring, and Grunt was sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs. Roland and Tulip were nowhere to be seen.

 

Puffing his chest up and making a move before he could talk himself out of it, Graham swung the door open and let Kenda bolt out of the house like a shot. He was already halfway down the porch by the time Graham managed to find the switch for the porch light and flick it on.

 

The light was old and breaking down like the rest of the house, and it flickered and made a crackling noise before coming on all the way. The bulb’s pale yellow light flooded the porch and spread out far enough that he could see what the trouble was.

 

There were three people - kids really, from the look of them - huddled together on his lawn. Two guys and a girl, looking like they were just barely out of high school with their punk clothes and trendy hair. They were hunched down and crowded around some panel of wood on the ground. As soon as the light came on and they saw Kenda running at them full tilt, they dropped their phones and scrambled away. The guys jumped to their feet and sprinted towards the gate across the field, vaulting over it in a way that led Graham to believe that this wasn’t their first time on his property.

 

They yelled something back to their friend but clearly had no intention of hanging around to make sure that she was following. Kenda chased after them as they fled the lawn, but turned back to barrel towards the girl once they were up and over the fence.

 

“Assholes!” she shouted, a second before Kenda caught up with her and knocked her back onto the ground.

 

Graham, tired and entirely over this already, watched as Kenda started to enthusiastically lick at the squirming girl’s face. “Fucking youths,” he muttered.

 

After watching her try to push his dog off for a good minute or so he decided to end her torment and called him back over with a whistle. Kenda immediately perked up and trotted over to Graham, laying down contentedly at his feet.

 

The girl stayed on the ground, panting and watching Graham with apprehensive eyes.

 

“Hey,” he called, leaning against the front door and crossing his arms. “You can come over, I won’t shoot you.”

 

“Okay.” Her voice was shaky, and she stayed on the ground for a few moments before pushing herself onto her feet. She collected her and her friends’ phones before tucking the wooden panel underneath her arm and walking towards the porch.

 

As she came into the light Graham was able to get a better look at her. She was pretty for sure, with a nice crop of purple hair that fell down past her shoulders. She was wearing ripped jeans and a sleeveless top that showed off her surprisingly toned arms. She seemed like she would be more at home in the city diving headfirst into a mosh pit than in some nowhere country town like this one sneaking onto an old farm, but he was hardly one to judge.

 

“I’m Abigail,” she said tentatively.

 

“Graham.”

 

“Yeah, I know. We thought you weren’t moving in until next week.”

 

“So you wanted to get all your trespassing in while you still had time?”

 

The word ‘trespassing’ seemed to spook her, almost as if she had only just remembered that she was doing something that could get her in a lot of trouble if Graham felt like making something out of it.

 

“Please don’t tell my parents,” she blurted out.

 

“I don’t know who your parents are.”

 

“Oh. Right.”

 

Graham stood there watching Abigail awkwardly fidget with her hair while she tried to look everywhere but at him. He supposed that he should probably be annoyed, and that he would be completely in his rights to call the cops or at least find out who her parents were and go complain to them, but in all honesty the idea of doing that was laughable. Just like with Emily’s eccentricities earlier that day, he was just glad for the distraction.

 

“So what’s that?” he motioned towards the panel under her arm.

 

“Oh, it’s my ouija board,” she said, holding it up to show him. “Sam and Seb were supposed to help me ground the planchette and keep an eye out for any activity while I asked the questions.”

 

“Is everyone in this town convinced that my farm is haunted?”

 

“Well yeah. The three of us come out here all the time to try to make contact. Farmer Hayes died, like, right there in your living room. If anywhere’s gonna have ghosts around here it’s your farm.”

 

Graham sighed but didn’t challenge her. He was too sleep deprived and worn down from the move to debate the existence of ghosts for what felt like the fifth time today.

 

“Anyway,” she ventured, “I should go find my friends. They’re probably freaking out without their phones. Thanks for not calling the police or anything.”

 

“No problem. Before you head out though, do you want some coffee?” he asked, almost out of reflex.

 

The stern expression on Abigail’s face broke as she looked Graham over and shrugged slightly. “Sure.”

 

“Your friends won’t mind?”

 

“They ditched me, so I think I’m down to let them suffer for a bit.”

 

“Cool. Dark roast or blonde?”

 

“Um, I don’t really know. We don’t have any coffee shops out here, so I just drink whatever canned stuff we keep at home.”

 

That sentence was in and of itself more offensive to Graham than any trespassing related delinquency that had just been happening on his lawn. He opened his door and motioned for Abigail to take a seat on the porch. “Prepare for your mind to be blown,” he said over his shoulder.

 

After the screen door shut behind him, Graham stood with his hands on his hips in the kitchen trying to remember which box he’d packed his coffee grinder in. As he rummaged around trying to find it, he mused that country life wasn’t shaping up to be as boring as he’d expected. Between the sage burning and interrupted seance, it had been a weird first day in the valley. But not necessarily a bad one. He hoped that day two proved to be equally entertaining.


	2. Chapter 2

Four hundred and twenty-seven days.

 

Four hundred—Shane Carver buried the shovel back into the shit piled around the stall—and twenty-fucking-seven days. Shane scooped, muscles in his back and shoulders screaming with the concerted effort, then he swiveled and dumped the manure into the wheelbarrow.

 

Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

He swiveled and scooped again, sinuses burning with the stink of shit. The ammonia smell sent his tear ducts watering and left salt crusted at the corners of his eyes where it mingled with the sweat dripping from his too-long bangs. The barn was hot for early spring, cattle and horses friskier than usual; the environment left him feeling wide awake and clearer than he’d been in years.

 

He could do this, he reminded himself. He’d been doing it for well over a year now.

 

He just had to keep scooping.

 

He wasn’t doing the mucking out of the kindness of his heart; he was doing it because it needed done. Because it was the closest he could get to cleaning his side of the street when it came to Marnie and Jas and all the shit they’d been through over the past two years. Because Scott, his sponsor, told him to find something that exhausted him to the point of being physically unable to pick up the bottle when it was all he wanted to do.

 

So he mucked.

 

It kept him busy; it put him in better physical condition than he’d been in for _years_. He was gaunt in the face, sure, but the flaccid skin on his arms had filled out with healthy, rounded muscle. His pants were loose around the waist and a little too fitted around the thighs from the combination of lack of drink and physical exercise. He wasn’t small by a long shot—his grandmother would’ve called him _sturdy_ , maybe _stout_ , but he was, for the first time in his adult life, what would pass as physically healthy. Shane’s knee twanged at the thought as if to remind him he’d never be in peak physical condition; he grunted through the pain and shoveled deeper.

 

Shane kept his hands wrapped tight around the handle of the shovel; he could feel his twenty-four hour medallion digging into his palm where he’d tucked it into his glove as a constant reminder while he worked. He kept it there now because he needed to feel it; when he wasn’t flipping it between his fingers—which he always was, he _needed_ that coin like most people needed air to breathe or water to drink—it was in his pocket. The face was beginning to wear from constantly rubbing his thumb over the inscription on the front of the coin: To Thine Own Self be True.

 

Even after four hundred and twenty-seven days, he was still struggling to live by that motto.

 

He kept the other medallions stored safely in a pouch in his pocket. They ranged from thirty days to a year, six in total—seven if you counted the chip he kept gripped tightly in his hand. He wouldn’t receive another until his eighteen-month anniversary. On his first anniversary, Scott had arranged a birthday of sorts. There had been cake, and Shane had been forced to share reflections over his past year. Jas, Marnie, and Emily were invited to that meeting; they went for pizza afterwards. _Celebrating a rebirth. A new life,_ Scott had called it.

 

Shane would’ve told him he was full of shit if he didn’t have almost fifteen years sober over him.

 

Starting over should have happened _before_. He’d been Jas’s legal guardian for two years; the fact that it had taken him the better part of that first year to sober up and stay that way was a shameful reminder that he’d checked out after accepting the responsibility of raising her. At the time, Shane had told himself it was okay because alcohol wasn’t illegal, not like Kat’s drugs had been.

 

Things were different now, he reminded himself firmly.

 

That party had felt a lot like they were celebrating more than just Shane’s latest milestone. There had been a multitude of happy things going on at the time, things that had happened over the duration of that year that deserved to be celebrated. There was the closing of their case with Zuzu Child and Family Services, the sentencing of Kat and Mark, the adoption finally going through. The entire evening was laced with hope, with the promise of Kat and Mark never setting sight on Jas again, with the idea that Shane’s sobriety could potentially last this time around, with the knowledge that Jas was, by law, Shane’s.

 

It had been a fucking relief, to say the least.

 

Simply thinking of the relief that had coursed through Shane the day he and Marnie sat at the kitchen table, hands clasped, and listened to the tinny voice of their caseworker as she relayed the information on Shane’s adoption case sent his mind into a tailspin of sorts. It made him grin, stupid with giddiness over the knowledge that Jas was safe; it made him want to drop what he was doing, find her, and hug her hard.

 

He wasn’t used to having the happiness or seemingly unconditional love (on the days where she _didn’t_ throw a temper tantrum) that Jas seemed to put in his life. It kept him going, knowing the situation she’d been in and the shit they’d gone through to get here, to Pelican Town.

 

Things could have been much, much worse.

 

The barn door rattled as it slid open; Shane peered up from his work and watched as a lone figure ambled into the barn. He wasn’t dressed for farm work: straight-legged jeans cuffed at the ankles and a pair of canvas shoes. He was oddly out of place among the bales of hay and the dust and dander floating about from the horses and cattle; he studied his surroundings for several long moments before heading for the stall Shane was working in.

 

As Shane watched the man come toward him, he racked his brain for the conversation he’d had with Marnie that morning. Between careful sips of steaming coffee, she’d mentioned—what had she said, exactly? The new guy in town, Graham Landry, would be swinging by. She had told him Shane could give him a rundown on raising cattle because of course Shane could; two years of experience practically made him the most qualified person in town to talk cattle with a city slicker, right?

 

Marnie wanted Shane to have a friend outside of Emily, the bar’s sole waitress, and she was desperately putting feelers out wherever she could. Shane would have told her not to, but he knew well enough to want to avoid hurting Marnie, be it intentional or accidental.

 

He would teach this stranger about cows, then.

 

Graham Landry was good looking enough for a guy, Shane reasoned—not that he paid attention to those sorts of things. His hair was close-cropped at the sides and shaggy on top, almost a shade too dark to be considered blond; his facial hair was neatly maintained and thick in a way that made Shane self-conscious of his own seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow. He had the makings of an athletic build, Shane thought: body soft in places from the stagnance of city life; shoulders carved out in a way that told Shane he’d not played gridball but probably did something like track in high school and college. He was the type of guy who could probably drop weight as easily as he picked it up. He saw the beginnings of recent weight loss in his face—sleepless lines and a hollowness in his collarbones that probably hadn’t been there last week; Shane figured it was stress related from the recent move. Graham’s face was all sharp, clean lines: strong nose and a generous upper lip, smile stretching it broad across his face. He should have been ordinary, entirely unremarkable to someone like Shane.

 

Except he wasn’t.

 

Graham’s was the type of face a person would want to see first thing when they walked through the door after a shitty day at work. There was a semi-constant crinkling of his eyes, a ghost of laughter playing around his mouth, that told Shane happiness came quickly and easily for him. Just for a moment, Shane wanted—irrationally—to know what that happiness would look like if he’d put it there.

 

And then he gave himself a swift mental kick in the ass, shook himself from his reverie, and tried to wrack his brain for something witty to say to hold Graham’s attention for a little longer than the few brief seconds he was likely to get while passing through the barn.

 

“You’re here to see the cows,” Shane offered eloquently. He lifted an arm and swiped at the sweat beading on his brow. He wasn’t—he wasn’t trying to impress the guy, he told himself. Yoba knew Shane was absolutely the last person who needed any sort of romantic entanglement in his life, but it wouldn’t hurt to make a good first impression. Who would be interested in a recovering alcoholic with a kid, anyways?

 

Shane wanted to drink. He wanted to call Scott. He wanted to keep mucking because he didn’t know what to do with the discomfort pooling in his abdomen unless he picked up the bottle, and drinking simply was not an option.

 

Not after four hundred and twenty-seven days.

 

Graham rocked back on his heels, looking more than a little out of his element. Voice laced with sarcasm, he said, “Actually, I came for the ambiance.” Grin cracking across his face, he quickly added, “Yeah, I came for the cows. Your aunt said I could find you out here and that you’d be able to help me out.”

 

Shane propped the shovel against the side of the stall and pulled his gloves off, careful to keep hold of his coin. He shoved the gloves deep into his back pocket, fished a couple of peppermints out of the opposite pocket, and offered one to Graham. As Graham crinkled the wrapper on the peppermint, Shane said, “Yeah, if you want to talk cattle, I guess I’m your guy. Beef or dairy?”

 

Graham rolled the plastic wrap from the candy between his fingers and grimaced. “Dairy. I know raising beef cattle is necessary, but…”

 

Shane smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Raising them up for slaughter not really your thing?”

 

Graham shrugged. “I guess if I’m going to have a relationship with an animal, I’d prefer I wasn’t using it solely as a means to an end. I’d rather meet my cheeseburger for the first time when it’s coming out on the plate, you know?”

 

“Yeah, I guess I can see what you mean by that.” It didn’t make much sense to him, not really. Raising beef cattle was, in Shane’s opinion, far less involved and arguably more profitable, but Shane understood where Graham was coming from. “You do realize that part of dairy farming involves separating the calf from the mother shortly after birth, right?”

 

Graham blinked in surprise. “What does that matter?”

 

“The separation can be… emotionally taxing for the fainthearted,” Shane said evasively. “The calves cry some; the mothers search. It’s painful, sometimes. You have to get used to it.” He shrugged as if he wouldn’t know how that felt even though he could remember with painstaking clarity the first time he’d sat and listened to the calves yelling for their mothers. Marnie had given him a _look_ —one of those that, in the early days of his sobriety, told him she was questioning whether he’d make it through the next trial without falling off the wagon once and for all. After the initial nursing, Shane and Marnie had been tasked with separating the calves from their mothers. Shane sat for an entire night, back pressed against the inside of the barn as the calves moaned in seeking despair. Their mothers, in turn, often hollered for the calves as well; after a day or so, they returned to the milking herd thoughtlessly while their calves were reared by hand.

 

Shane knew now that it was simply something that had to be done in order to preserve the farm; it didn’t bother him as badly anymore.

 

Graham looked uncomfortable and more than a little like he was second-guessing purchasing the Hayes farm on a whim; Shane clocked him lightly on the shoulder and brushed past as he exited the stall. “C’mon, I’ll show you some of the dairy cattle.”

 

Shane led Graham out of the barn. The spring air was thick with pollen and cool on his tacky skin; the new March sun filtered through a wispy batch of clouds overhead. Shane readjusted the ball cap on his head and tucked his chin close to his chest. He pointed different things out as he directed Graham through the hubbub of the ranch. They wove their way through the chickens roaming freely in the yard, passed the pasture where Marnie housed her saddlebreds—stopping once there so Shane could explain why horses and cows couldn’t be pastured together, much to Graham’s confusion,—and stopped only when Graham’s eyes caught sight of the cattle grazing in the pasture. Shane looked forward toward the calf hutches, only a little annoyed that Graham had paused once more in what Shane had thought was an obvious circuit. The initial annoyance ebbed when he saw the way Graham’s eyes were lit with interest and something not unlike adoration. He was an animal lover, that much was clear.

 

“Those are the dairy cattle?”

 

Shane didn’t look. “Those are the girls, yeah. The heifers are kept for calving and milking, and if you keep the males, then they’re castrated and raised until they’re old enough to be sent out for slaughter.” He soured his face into an unhappy grimace. “What you’re looking at right now is what we call the milking herd.”

 

Graham choked audibly, face pinking up in indignation. “I don’t want to send cattle off for slaughter.”

 

“Are you getting sentimental on me, Graham? Look,” Shane said, pausing beside the electric fence. Daisy, one of the older heifers, raised her head up from grazing and watched them with interest. “Farming isn’t—it’s not all flowers and happy endings, alright? If you’re going to get into the cattle business, you’re going to have mamas that inevitably give birth to males. Since you can’t milk males and it doesn’t pay to use them as lawn ornaments, you raise them up until they’re old and fat enough to be sent off as beef cattle. If you can’t stomach that, I would recommend finding someone to sell your male calves to so they can raise them and sell them for beef. Marnie does that some; I’m sure she could hook you up with the guy she sells all of her male calves to.”

 

Graham reached a hand out and scratched at the top of Daisy’s head, disheartened expression lightening. “She doesn’t raise the males herself?”

 

Shane crunched down on his peppermint and squinted into the early spring sun. Graham’s attention to Daisy was bringing a few of the other girls ambling slowly over; Shane rubbed fondly at the soft fold of Mae’s ear. “She used to, but she got out of it a couple years back. She’s getting on in years, as she puts it, and the last time we hauled a load of males off, Jas cried for an entire week. We couldn’t stomach it, so we decided to start selling them outright to a farmer in the next town over.”

 

Graham ruminated on this newfound knowledge for a moment, likely allowing its assimilation into what little he knew of farm life. His fingers kept moving in a steady circuit on Daisy’s head; after a beat or so, he asked, “Who’s Jas? I thought I’d met everyone in town, but—”

 

Graham was immediately cut off by a shrill squeal, the slamming of a barn door, and a loud “ _Daddy!_ ”

 

Jas rocketed out of the barn as quickly as her small legs would carry her, muck boots slinging mud and manure as she stomped across the yard. The barn door flapped open behind her, all of Shane’s reminders to keep it closed apparently forgotten in whatever excitement she’d found herself caught in. She looked like a miniature replica of Shane’s sister: raven hair twisted into two pigtail buns, cherubic cheeks pink, eyes alight with all the excitement in the world. She was small for her age, still: six-years-old but clocking in at about the size of a child two years her junior. Harvey said she could potentially catch up, but then again, Kat had always been small, even before the drugs.

 

Shane figured as long as Jas was happy and healthy, that’s all that mattered.

 

“Graham, meet Jas,” he managed just as she slammed into Shane’s knees with the force of a small tornado. Shane caught her around the middle and lifted her up, resting her on his hip. She’d recently come into protesting that she was too old for him to carry her; in the midst of all the excitement, she voiced no complaints at being picked up.

 

Jas waved her hands excitedly. They were, Shane realized belatedly, smeared with blood and what smelled a little too much like shit for his comfort. Why hadn’t Marnie put gloves on her? “Dad, you have to come quick. There’s been a, a calf! She’s been born, _finally!_ ” She wriggled out of his grasp and sprinted back to the barn, pausing only once to glare back in his direction to ensure he was following along.

 

Shane looked at Graham, shrugged, and followed Jas’s beeline for the barn.

 

Graham trotted along beside him. Incredulation evident in his tone, he said, “So that was Jas. She looked like... Like she’d been _helping._  Please tell me she’s not some sort of child midwife to the cows here?"

 

Shane chuckled, pride bubbling up in his chest. Jas loved the cows, and she was brilliant when it came to working with them. Of course Marnie let her assist in the birthing process. “It’s easier to let her help than to deal with the tantrum that would ensue if we _didn’t_ let her help. One day,” Shane offered sagely, _when you have kids of your own_ left unspoken, “you’ll get what I mean. And she’s smart; she wants to help. What can it hurt? She knows just as much about ranching as I do.”

 

Eyes lifting to Shane’s, he added, “I didn’t realize you had a daughter.”

 

Shane couldn’t help the words the bubbled out next. “She’s my sister’s.” Quickly realizing the implication of that sentence standing alone, he added, “Not mine and my sister’s; my sister was—is—married to some piece of shit. Jas is mine now. I adopted her, and for all she knows, her parents are dead. I’d like to keep it that way.”

 

Shane couldn’t pinpoint why he’d elected to give that information out freely to a complete stranger. Since coming to Pelican Town two years ago, he’d only divulged the secret once, to Emily. She was a good friend; he knew he could trust her implicitly. But this guy, this random stranger? He knew nothing about him. For all Shane knew, Graham could run to the bar and tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry he ran into that Shane’s kid wasn’t really his.

 

Why in the hell had it felt so natural to blurt it out, then?

 

As if he sensed Shane’s internal conflict, Graham said, “No worries, man. I won’t tell anyone. She looks like you, though. You get that a lot?”

 

Shane’s mouth crooked up at the corner in a semblance of a grin as they drew closer to the barn. “Yeah, I do. My sister and I were pretty similar, and she looks like Kat. It makes the story easier to pass off.”

 

“I know you don’t need platitudes or shit like that,” Graham said quietly, “and I don’t know your story, but what you did for her is really fucking awesome. Raising kids is tough. Coparenting is hard enough; I can’t imagine doing it on your own.”

 

“I wouldn’t manage without Aunt Marnie,” Shane admitted. His brain seemed to short-circuit and replay the words _coparenting is hard enough_. Graham wouldn’t know anything about raising kids or coparenting, unless

 

A phone was shoved beneath Shane’s nose; he blinked down at, brow furrowing in surprise. There was a little girl on the screen—Jas’s age, probably, maybe older; he couldn’t tell because Jas’s physical development was stunted and this girl was likely just the appropriate size for her age. She was surrounded by a pile of dogs, grin identical to her father’s splitting across the warm brown canvas of her heart-shaped face.

 

“This is Doll,” Graham said proudly. “Short for Dahlia, but I only call her that when she’s in trouble. She’s my daughter.”

 

“Cute kid.” Shane raised a brow; his next comment sounded more cutting than he’d intended. “Where is she?”

 

Graham cleared his throat. “She’s with her mom in the city. I couldn’t take her away from her school and her friends; anyways, Hannah and I have a good system going, and snatching our kid from her would probably royally screw that up. And isn’t it kind of weird that there isn’t actually a school system in place for this town?”

 

Shane barked out a laugh. He’d had his reservations about Penny teaching Jas in the beginning, but Marnie assured him Penny was more than qualified to provide an education to her. “Almost as weird as there not being any sort of law enforcement around here, right?”

 

Graham gaped at Shane openly, looking very much as though he thought Shane was the only sensible person he’d encountered in the entire town. “Thank Yoba, I’m not the only one concerned with the crime rates in this fucking place,” he muttered.

 

Shane gave a careless roll of his shoulder, muscles warm and well-worked from his morning’s activities. “Not much happens around here, save for trespassing and maybe some petty theft. A bar fight happened once last year, but Lewis takes care of shit like that when it crops up.”

 

Their conversation petered to a close as they approached the birthing pen. Marnie and Jas were standing just outside the pen, arms propped on the bars in twin stances as they watched Mabel lap at her newborn calf. The calf was a small, fawn-colored thing; eyes big and brown in its frightened face.

 

When Marnie heard them coming, she turned to look and gave them a smile. “It’s a little girl,” she announced. “She seems like she’s doing well; the birth was easy enough, at least. Jas had barely come running for me when the calf was out.”

 

Shane watched with interest as Graham took a few hesitant steps forward to get a better look at the newborn calf. He came to a stop just beside Jas and squatted, peering into the pen from her height. Marnie raised her brows in question, eyes flitting from Shane to Graham and back.

 

Shane shrugged.

 

Jas shifted slightly, arms dropping from the bars as she scooted a little closer to Marnie and away from Graham. Sensing her hesitation, Graham held a hand out and gave her a tentative smile. “I’m Graham,” he began. “Your dad says you know a lot about taking care of cows. Think you could give me a few pointers?”

 

Jas’s eyes instantly flew to Shane’s, seeking confirmation. He nodded once, just a small dip of his chin, and smiled at her encouragingly. Marnie rested a hand between the sharp wings of her shoulder blades.

 

Confidence bolstered by Shane’s and Marnie’s obvious approval, Jas pursed her lips, shook Graham’s hand, and rested her hands on her hips. Mirroring his dialogue, she said, “My friend, Vincent, said you have lots of dogs. Think you could bring them to visit sometime?”

 

“Sure,” Graham grinned. “I have a cat, too.”

 

Seemingly pleased with his response, Jas sniffed and turned back to face Mabel and her baby. “I can teach you how to bottle feed the babies! But first the new baby has to get a drink from its mama. It needs the chol—colo—”

 

“Colostrum,” Marnie supplied gently. To Graham, she added, “You decided to go with the dairy cattle, then?”

 

Graham stood and brushed his hands across his jeans, fingers scraping lightly across the fabric. “Yeah, I think so. Shane sort of talked me through the decision. I’m going to need some pointers, though.”

 

The calf nuzzled into its mother’s udder, seeking; the conversation paused momentarily as the calf began to nurse greedily.

 

Softly, Marnie offered, “What would you think about learning some of the ropes before you take on the responsibility of a full herd? This little one will be separated from Mabel tonight; you could start feeding her tomorrow. Once she’s mature enough, we’ll sell her to you at a discounted price for the labor, if that interests you.”

 

Graham raised his brows, doubt coloring the planes of his cheeks. “You think that’ll give me enough time and experience to raise a herd on my own?”

 

Marnie laughed and waved her hand dismissively. “I’m still learning, and I’ve been doing this for over twenty years! Like I said, it should give you a good head start. If you run into any trouble, we’re your neighbors—this isn’t like the city where you can’t ask for help, you know.”

 

“No, you’re right.” Graham chewed at the inside of his cheek, thinking. He gave it a few seconds before saying, “What the hell? You’ve got yourself a deal, Marnie. Let’s do this.”

 

Jas crowed. “I can teach you everything you need to know about cows!”

 

Graham’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, but the apprehension in his face was clear. “Looking forward to it, kiddo.” His eyes roved across Shane’s face as if to ask a silent _what have I gotten myself into?_ He forked out his hand once more—still soft and barely callused from city life, Shane noticed—and Marnie took it in her own work-weathered palm.

 

They shook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed what you've read so far, drop a comment, hit that kudos button, and come hang out on tumblr! We love making new friends, bouncing headcanons around, and obsessing over the fandom in general. And if you haven't had a chance yet, go check out our other co-op: Literary Pursuits!
> 
> Eternally thankful to anyone who has read, commented, or left kudos on any of our works thus far—you're awesome, you're beautiful, and you have great taste ;)
> 
> xoxo ohsocyanide

**Author's Note:**

> you can find your friendly neighborhood fic writers at palisadesucks.tumblr.com/ & uninspire-me.tumblr.com/
> 
> \---
> 
> Merry Christmas to you all! We bring you the gift of a new Shane fic. Some of you might recognize ohsocyanide and I from our other shared fic, Literary Pursuits, and if so we hope you follow along with this new project too. We are both so excited about this story and we're looking forward to introducing you all to the gospel of Graham and Shane.


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